Archive for the ‘Market Updates’ Category

Caterpillar Posts Better Than Expected Q1 Earnings

Posted by Michael on April 26th, 2010

CaterpillarStrong first quarter earnings from Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) have helped pushed the market higher to start off the week.

Shares of Caterpillar are up 4.5% on the day to $71.91, up $3.13 following better than expected results this morning before the market opened.

Analysts were forecasting $0.39 per share, and the company easily outpaced those estimates with a reported $0.50 per share.

Revenues were a bit shy of analyst estimates, but the stock is surging after it raised its forecast for full year 2010 to $2.50 to $3.25 a share, up from its previous forecast of $2.50 per share.

S&P boosted its price target on the stock to $80 a share, and maintained its Buy rating on the company.

The company noted that the global economy is definitely improving, and as a result construction has been rebounding. This helped pushed the overall market higher today, with the DOW up over 25 points in afternoon trading.

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Posted in Earnings, Forecasts, Good News, Major Moves, Market Updates Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment »

General Electric and Bank of America pull down the market

Posted by Michael on October 16th, 2009

bearThe market closed in the red today, as poor earnings from General Electric (NYSE: GE) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) brought out the bears.

The DOW closed the session down 0.67%, the NASDAQ ended the day down 0.76%, while the S&P slipped by 0.8%.

General Electric started off the day off on a bad note when the company reported revenues that came up short of analyst estimates. GE was able to outpace analyst estimates for its earnings in the third quarter by posting 23 cents per share verse analyst estimates of 20 cents per share, but that was not enough to outweigh its missed revenues. The company reported $37.8 billion in revenues verse analyst estimates for $40.3 billion. Shares of GE closed the day down 4.2% to $16.08, down $0.71 on the day and wiping out $7.5 billion in market capitalization.

Bank of America was expected to show a loss for its third quarter of 21 cents per share, but the actual numbers came in worse than expected with a 26 cent loss in the quarter. The stock was hit hard today following the report, with shares falling 4.6% to $17.26, down $0.84 on the day.

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New 52 Week Highs:

There were several big name stocks that were able to set new 52 week highs today, despite the down market and include the following; Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), Halliburton (NYSE: HAL), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), and Mattel (NYSE: MAT).

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Analyst upgrades and downgrades:

Stocks upgraded today include:

  • Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) upgraded by Caris to Buy from Above Average with $27 price target
  • Safeway (NYSE: SWY) upgraded by Kevin Dann to Buy from Neutral and boosted its price target on the stock to $27 from $19 per share.
  • Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) received an upgrade today by Benchmark Co. to a Buy from Hold, while lifting its price target on the stock to $625 from $500.

Stocks downgraded today include:

  • Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) downgraded by Caris to Above Average from Buy with a $56 price target on the stock.
  • Nokia (NYSE: NOK) downgraded by Gabelli to Hold from Buy.

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Posted in Bad News, Earnings, Good News, Major Moves, Market Updates, New Highs, downgrades, upgrades Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments »

Wall Street has best week in 2 months

Posted by Michael on October 9th, 2009

wall-streetThe DOW closed at its highest in a year, as the market had its best week in the past 2 months, and snapping a two week losing streak.

For the week, the DOW was up 4%, with the Nasdaq and S&P both up an impressive 4.5%.

We got a couple pieces of good news today. The Commerce Department noted that the trade deficit fell by 3.6%, and we also got news that first time jobless claims fell last week to their lowest levels since January.

Major stocks hitting new 52 week highs were: Cisco Systems (CSCO), International Business Machines (IBM), Brocade (BRCD), Target (TGT), Schering Plough (SGP) and Pier One (PIR).

Today also marks the two year anniversary of the DOW’s all-time closing high of 14,165 on Oct. 9, 2007.

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Wall Street continues to suffer

Posted by Michael on March 2nd, 2009

For the first time in over 11 years, the market dropped below the psychological 7,000 mark today, as investors continue to weigh concerns over a struggling financial sector, and worry over how deep and long lasting the current session is going to wind up being.

When the smoke finally settled this afternoon, the DOW showed a hefty 4.2% loss, closing all the way down at 6,763.29.  The NASDAQ also took a big hit today, giving back 3.99% in today’s trading to close down at 1.322.85.

We are now looking at a greater than 50% retraction in the major indexes since their historic highs set back in the summer of 2007.

Some analysts think that we are going to see the markets head down towards their 1995 levels. If that is the case, then you could expect to see the DOW drop down close to, if not under the 5,000 mark. Pretty scary thought.

The credit crunc, foreclosures, rising unemployment are the main culprits, and until we can see a stabilization in at least one of these areas, expect more downside. How much more downside remains to be seen, but for now the picture is definitely not looking too pretty.

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Market Update – Markets close the week on a sour note

Posted by Michael on February 13th, 2009

Friday was another sell off for the market, as investors continue to show fear ahead of a plan out of Washington on how to reverse the current recession that seems to be deepening with each passing day.

The DOW was down 1.04% today, the NASDAQ traded 0.5% lower, and the S&P dropped another 1.0% in today’s trading.

For the week, the DOW dropped a total of 5.2%, and is sitting at lows that we have not seen since back in November when fear was running rapid among traders regarding the future of the economy.

One thing that is keeping traders in a selling mode is the waiting game to see what version of the current stimulus package actually gets approved. In today’s news, the House of Representatives passed their version on the stimulus package, a $787 billion plan to boost the economy. The next step is to get the bill pass the Senate, which is expected to cast its vote later today.

President Obama was optimistic that the bill had made it through the House, and now awaits to see if the Senate will send him the bill for his approval next week.

In other news today, two of the big banks, JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup announced that they were enacting a moratorium on new foreclosures until they see what sort of plan Obama announces to help ease the huge increases in foreclosures that are hitting the market. Both banks have suspended new foreclosures until the first part of March in hopes of easing the pain that many homeowners are currently dealing with.

The markets will be closed on Monday, so we will have to wait until Tuesday to see if the market can make up some of its recent losses.

Enjoy your Valentines Day, and your long 3 day weekend.

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Posted in After the Bell, Bad News, Congress, Economy, Foreclosures, Housing, Market Updates, Politics, Recession Tags: , , , , , , , No Comments »

Premarket look: Market poised for lower start to kick off February

Posted by Michael on February 2nd, 2009

Taking a look at futures trading this morning indicates that the market is going to get off to a tough start for the trading day of February.

Investors continue to express concern that the stimulus package that was recently passed in the House is not going to get passed when the Senate gets its chance to vote on the new plan. There is still a good deal of concern over what the new package is going to do to address the ailing bank industry.

Consumer spending fell again in December, as the Commerce Department announces that personal spending in December fell by another 1%, as incomes dropped by 0.2% in the month as layoffs continue to mount. Analysts had been expecting to see consumer spending off by 0.9% in the month.

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Stock upgrades this morning

Posted by Michael on October 24th, 2008

It has definitely been a tough market lately, and today looks like another market crash, but we have here a few stocks that were upgraded this morning, and should have OK days as a result

  • Chico’s FAS (CHS) : Thomas Weisel lifted its rating on the stock to a market weight.
  • Estee Lauder (EL) : Piper Jaffray lifted its rating on the stock from a sell rating to a neutral.
  • Jetblue (JBLU) : JPMorgan lifts its rating on the stock to a overweight.
  • Trimble Navigation (TRMB) : Oppenheimer lifts this stock to an outperform

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Premarket look: Market poised for another sell off

Posted by Michael on October 6th, 2008

Another tough day ahead of us on Wall Street, as international markets have sold off about 4% today on widening fears over the slowing global economy.

Look for another sell off on Wall Street, as futures are indicating a very sharp drop at the open. After the volatile week last week, many of us had some hopes that the Bush approved $700 billion bailout plan that was passed late on Friday would help spark a slight bounce, but that is not to be the case, and stocks are set for a much lower open to get the week started.

There is going to be a lot of pain out there today.

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Posted in Bad News, Before the Bell, Congress, Consumer Experience, Economy, George Bush, Major Moves, Market Updates, Politics, Recession No Comments »

Market should open higher after yesterday’s sell off

Posted by Michael on September 30th, 2008

Yesterday was brutal on the stock market, with the largest one day drop in history, as the DOW fell 777 points, a decline of nearly 7. The Nasdaq dropped by even more on a percentage basis, with a decline of 9.14%, and the S&P gave back 8.8% yesterday.

Futures are trading higher today, but it is going to take a lot more than one day of upside to make up what we lost yesterday.

Yesterday started off slowly as investors were skeptical that the proposed Bush bailout plan was going to be enough to save the troubled economy, but that fear turned to panic once the market realized that the plan was not going to go through all at yesterday afternoon.

Lawmakers are going to be on holiday until Thursday to observe the Jewish holidays, but there should still be some action taking place behind closed doors aimed at ironing out a new deal that will satisfy both Congress and Wall Street. We will see if / when that is able to take place.

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Premarket look : Market poised for a strong start to the day

Posted by Michael on May 30th, 2008

Futures are trading above fair values this morning as Wall Street prepares for a strong start to the day.

There are two main factors at work today, strong earnings from computer giant Dell Computer (NASDAQ: DELL), and positive economic data on consumer spending that came out this morning.

DELL reported its first quarter numbers last night, and easily beat analyst estimates for the quarter, showing earnings of 38 cents per share, which was well above the 34 cents a share that analysts had been expecting to see. The company noted strong growth in both its consumer and commercial business lines as being key components to its strong quarter.

Also giving the market a boost this morning was the release of April consumer spending figures which showed a 0.2% rise in the month of April. This was in-line with what Wall Street was hoping to see, and a sign that the current economic slowdown and record high gasoline prices has not kept Americans from spending.

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